Out of the shadows, p.12
Out of the Shadows, page 12
She was tired and her mind was sluggish, which was why the one thing permeating her thoughts was something she’d successfully kept buried since leaving the house that morning.
By leaving the ribbon, the Phantom’s message was plain. He was no longer playing a hiding game, he was telling her that he wanted her, and had wanted her all along. But the main part of the message—the part she had so successfully kept buried—was the most basic of it all. The Phantom knew where she lived!
A cold chill rippled through her. She fought away the fear and made herself think. One thing that was known about the Phantom was that he’d never taken a victim from their home.
His MO—Method of Operation—was always the same. He struck somewhere between work or a regular place the victim frequented—be it a gym or a cocktail lounge—and home.
What else did she know? Her answer was the same as always. Nothing!
No, she corrected, she knew more now. She knew that she was his victim, and that every woman who had been violated by him and then killed had been a substitute for her.
Closing her eyes, she tried to think back. What terrible thing had she done and to whom, to create such a monster?
She picked up the ribbon and rolled it into a ball. Then she put it in her right palm and curled her fingers over it. An instant later she crushed the ribbon with all her might.
She took a deep breath and opened her hand. Why hadn’t she told Brice what she knew?
She snorted with a self-deprecating laugh. How could she tell him when he had told her she was not allowed to even think about the case, much less work on it?
And Brice Walker was a cop’s cop. He was as straight a shooter as there was in the department. If he had taken information from her, he would have been obligated to tell who it had come from, should he be asked.
“Oh, no!”
The words startled Amy, bringing her out of her reverie, and making her aware that her mother had returned home.
“I didn’t know there had been another one,” Joan Morgan said, staring down at the headline.
Amy nodded.
“When will it be over? Those poor women.”
Looking at her mother, she felt the anguish that she and most of the women in the city must be feeling when they read the papers or listened to the news on television and radio.
“They’re getting close, Mom, real close,” she lied.
“I hope so.”
“How was your trip?”
Her mother smiled. “Nice. But it’s good to be home. Paul is back?”
Amy looked at her watch. It was ten. “Sound asleep.”
“Did he have a good weekend?”
Amy laughed. “Come on, let’s have some tea and I’ll tell you all about it, and about the woman who Ron will most likely marry.”
“It is that serious, is it?”
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The scissors sounded loud in the dead silence of the room as he worked on the newspaper. When he was finished cutting the photograph, he held it up. The woman’s smiling face called to him. She had that same haughty smile and same contemptuous look in her eyes she always did.
Standing, he took the picture and went to the wall. He held it next to another picture, comparing it. Yes, they looked enough like each other to be sisters.
Will she feel the same as they had? Is her skin as soft as velvet, yet taut and elastic? Will it yield to my touch? Will she die the same way as they did—first fighting me and then finding the understanding of what I did for them?
He laughed as he used a clear tack to stick the picture to the wall. I’ll know soon enough.
Returning to the table, he picked up the black plastic spool of ribbon. He inspected it, turning it sideways to look at the lavender ribbon itself.
Did my message get through to her? Had she understood the significance of the ribbon? Of course she had. She was smart. She was very smart, which made the game even more fun.
But it had to end soon. It had gone on long enough. And now that she was trying to find him again...well, he would just have to find her first.
He laughed again, louder. Then he looked at his trophy wall, remembering each time he had taken her physically, used her to his will, and then killed her.
“Oh, Amy, I am coming for you,” he whispered, his voice coarse with twisted desire.
TEN
WHEN HER LAST CLASS ended, Amy felt as though she’d been in school for a month. The day had dragged on interminably, her concentration wavering and breaking more times than it held.
She placed part of the blame on the reality of her situation. Until late last night, she had been functioning on adrenaline. But when she’d finally gotten into bed, her mind had refused to ignore the truth of what was happening.
The Phantom was after her, plain and simple, and it scared her more than she wanted to admit. She’d always been the hunter—the one to track the criminal. Now, the criminal was pursuing her.
Amy knew that a certain degree of fear was a healthy thing for anyone to have, especially a cop who spent his or her duty hours on the street. The right level of fear kept you alert and responsive but did not hinder your ability for action.
But the fear produced by knowing she was the target of an insane serial killer was far different from anything she had ever experienced.
When she’d fallen asleep last night, her dreams had been plagued by an unseen specter taunting her from behind a ghostly visage. By the time morning had arrived, it had been as if she’d not slept at all.
And now that the school day was over, her real work could start, she thought, as she put her papers into the case. She paused, forcing herself to step back.
The Phantom was after her. But she had a responsibility to the students she was teaching and could not let what was happening to her continue interfering with her job at the academy. She owed her students all her attention, and promised herself come tomorrow, she would remain focused on her students and their training.
With her thoughts going into a more productive vein, Amy left the classroom for her office and the scheduled meeting with Rivera and Wahl to lay out her course of action.
Finding the two cadets waiting, she ushered them inside. Before they could get down to work, her phone rang. “Lieutenant Morgan.”
“Lieutenant, this is Laura Stickles, could you please come to the staff meeting room? We are having a special meeting.”
“I’m with two students.”
“I’m afraid it’s rather urgent, Lieutenant. Please make your excuses and come as quickly as possible.”
“Very well,” she said to the school’s assistant administrator. “Ladies, I’ve been called to a staff meeting. Meet me at my house, at seven. Bring the files and be prepared to spend some time. See yourselves out,” she added as she left her office.
When she entered the staff meeting room, two other teachers followed behind her. Looking around quickly, she saw that the entire teaching staff of the academy was crammed into the room. Captain Jaeger stood at the front, scanning the faces.
“I think we can begin now. Ladies and gentlemen, I have some upsetting news. Due to the fiscal budget problems plaguing the city, the City Council has voted to cut back funding in many areas, including here at the academy. I’m afraid we have to spend the next few hours trying to figure out how to salvage the special-project classes that are to be terminated. So, Warren, let’s start with you,” he said, nodding to the forensic instructor.
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Amy arrived home at six-thirty. Paul, who was watching television, waved to her. Her mother said, “I picked up those things you asked for. They’re in the office.”
“Thanks, Mom, I’ll change and be right back.”
In her bedroom, Amy took off her uniform, replacing it with jeans and a T-shirt. On her way to the kitchen, she looked into the office. A tripod with a two by three foot marker board was set in the middle. A half a dozen yellow legal pads were on the desk.
Her mother was a gem. She’d called Joan Morgan when they’d taken a break at the staff meeting. She’d told Joan that she would be working with a couple of students and asked her to take a run to the stationery store and pick those things up.
When Cynthia and Trina arrived, they would be able to go right to work. She shut off the office light and went into the kitchen.
Joan went to the oven and took out a plate. “In here?”
“Fine,” Amy said, sitting at the kitchen table.
After setting the plate down, she sat across from Amy. “I think it’s about time you let me in on what’s going on.”
Amy furrowed her brows. “Going on?”
“Amy, I lived with your father for thirty-seven years. I knew when things went well, and when they turned bad. I also knew when he was working on his own on a case the department either didn’t want to bother with, or assigned to someone he didn’t think could get the job done.
“And you, my dear, are too much like him for my comfort. Please, don’t insult me by thinking you can get away with some cockamamie story about tutoring two students. Instead of playing games, talk to me. It always helped your father. It may help you.”
She held her mother’s gaze for a moment before taking a bite of the lasagna her mother had made, chewed, swallowed and admitted, “It’s the Phantom.”
Joan Morgan nodded slowly. “I thought so. You can’t let it go, can you?”
Amy shook her head. “He’s killed two more women in the last few weeks. He has to be stopped.”
“And you think you’re the one who will stop him?”
Amy put down her fork. She looked past her mother, and deep into another mental dimension. “I may be the only one who can.”
“How?”
“I don’t know that yet. But I will.”
“What about the department? Won’t they have something to say about this?”
Amy’s voice was tinged with bitterness as she said, “They already have. I’m to teach at the academy, period.”
“They don’t know you very well, do they?” her mother said, rhetorically. “Is that why you took over your father’s office? So you can catch him?”
Amy stirred the food about her plate, and then speared a small piece of lasagna with her fork. Before lifting the fork she asked, “Does it bother you?”
Joan reached across the table to briefly squeeze Amy’s hand. “That’s the last thing it does. It feels good to have someone in there again. The house is less lonely. It’s almost as if he were here, with us.”
Seeing the loss in her mother’s eyes, Amy swallowed hard. “He is with us.”
The doorbell interrupted them. “I’ll get it,” Joan said. “You finish up.”
A moment later her mother brought Rivera and Wahl into the kitchen and offered them some lasagna. Both women refused, saying that they had eaten.
Amy finished her dinner, stood, and started to the office. “Coffee?” asked Joan Morgan.
“Thanks, Mom.”
In the office, she pointed to the leather Chesterfield. “Ladies, I’d like your reports on what you found in the files.”
Trina Rivera spoke first. She took out a notepad from her briefcase and flipped to the second page. “As far as I can see, we have exactly the same facts today that the department had after the Phantom took his first victim.”
The young cadet’s dark eyes were troubled. “We know the following: each victim died in exactly the same manner. Each was raped and then murdered. Except for the ribbon left in every victim’s hair, he has never left evidence.
“There is one other piece of evidence we have to link him to the killings, once we find him. We know his blood type, and we have his DNA because of the rapes.
“The DNA is not in the national databanks, therefore we don’t know who it is so it can’t lead us to him. His blood type is the most common type of all, which means those things are useless as far as giving us the ability to catch him. But, what they will do, once the Phantom is caught, is prove he’s the killer.”
Amy looked from Rivera to Wahl. A strange sadness settled over her as she studied the cousin of the Phantom’s second victim. She realized the feeling was because she was responsible for the woman’s death—not because of something she had or had not done, but because of who she was.
Inhaling deeply, Amy shook off the sudden melancholy. “You two junior cops came up with something the entire Metropolitan Police Department missed—me. I want to know exactly how you made that connection. I can’t accept that the first time you saw me, you made this... match.”
Cindy shrugged. “It really was the way I told you. When I saw you that first day, you reminded me of my cousin. You looked a little like her, facially, but it was more a combination of things. The way you moved and held yourself and even talked. And when I saw a picture of the last victim, I just knew it.”
“But how did you figure out a way to make the connection?”
“When you challenged us, and Trina and I started to prove our hunch, we used one of my psychology professor’s theories. He was very involved with the influence the media has over the general public. My professor’s theory was that a small event, written up in a newspaper, can trigger a larger event.
“Part of the reasoning is that if the writing strikes a person in a particular way, it can influence him or her to think in a different manner than he or she had previously thought.”
“That makes sense. Newscasts, stories, and even gossip have the same effect. Although the words might mean one thing, they are always open to an individual’s personal interpretation.”
Wahl nodded. “So when we were in the library, we read every local news story for the week prior to each of the deaths. But we couldn’t find anything.
“I decided to go to my cousin’s death. I worked back every day, and read every article in the paper. On the twelfth day before she was killed we found what we were looking for. It was the story about you receiving your medal for the bank robbery you stopped.”
“We went to the next victim, and ten days before that, you made lieutenant,” Rivera said, taking over for her friend.
“From there on, it was easy. The first victim was taken three weeks after you got the bank robbery hostages released. The fourth victim was killed thirteen days after the story of you heading up the Phantom task force. There is always at least eight days between an Amy Morgan story and a Phantom death. And—”
“—that’s enough.” Amy stopped her while mastering her churning emotions. “Before we go any further, I want to explain exactly how this investigation will work.”
She went to the board and picked up a marker. “We will put down every occurrence we deem connected to the Phantom. Then we’ll chart it out to see if we have anything.
“Cynthia, why don’t you start the chart? Trina, you read the notes. When you’ve gotten all your dates down, then we’ll continue.”
As the two cadets went to the board, Joan entered the office carrying a tray. She set it on the desk and turned to the three women. “Enjoy. Do you need anything else?”
“We’re fine, Mom, thanks,” Amy said.
The two cadets echoed their thanks as Joan Morgan left, closing the door behind her.
Amy poured coffee in all three cups and took hers to the couch. She sat down and, as the two students worked, sipped the coffee and tried not to think about the dead women. When the two stepped back from the marker board, seven dates, printed in black, had been marked down; each had a notation about Amy. Beneath the seven dates were other dates, written in red. These were the Phantom’s victims. The eighth victim’s name was written in red, with no black date above it.
“Do either of you know why there was a victim and no publicity?”
When the cadets shook their heads, Amy said, “Draw a line between the first date and the last killing.”
Trina drew the line from the date of the hostage confrontation to the name of the eighth killing.
“Can you make a connection between the two events?”
When the women again shook their heads, she said, “It’s a message to me. The Phantom left his last victim at the same spot where I had talked the bank robbers into giving up their hostages. The Phantom has made a complete circle. Now he wants me, no one else.”
The women looked from Amy to the board. “Then we have to get him quickly, don’t we?” Cindy Wahl asked.
Amy didn’t respond; she didn’t want them to hear her doubt or sense her fear. Seeing the names of each victim, and reading the dates with her name on them, had struck harshly at her, reemphasizing her part in this sad drama.
There was a knock on the door, followed by Joan Morgan’s head poking in. Squeezing between his grandmother and the doorframe was Paul. “Amy, Paul wants to say good night.”
“Come in, sweetheart.” He slipped in and came to Amy, who introduced her son to the cadets.
“Do you want me to tuck you in?”
He shook his head. “It’s okay. I just wanted to say good night.”
Bending, she kissed his forehead, knowing that he was at the age that to do more would embarrass him. “Good night, sweetheart.”
“’Night, Mom,” he said and turned to Wahl and Rivera. “Good night,” he told the two women before returning to his grandmother, who escorted him out.
“He’s cute,” Trina Rivera said.
“Thank you. Now,” she added, her voice even and her emotions back on balance, “let’s go to the next stage. Suspects.”
“There are none,” Cynthia said.
“The department has none. I have one, and you ladies have his file.”
“Harold Slater,” Rivera responded. “Born, Harold Jonathan Slater. Thirty-nine years old, five foot eleven inches tall and weighs two hundred and ten pounds. He was married twice and has been arrested eleven times in the past fifteen years. He’s been convicted once, for the assault of his first wife—ex-wife.”
“Why him?” Cynthia asked.
“He hates women, he’s violent, and his alibis are always women who are afraid of him.”
Trina Rivera wrote his name on the marker board. When she finished, she turned to Amy. “What made you suspicious of him?”
